Nets and Kevin Durant reunite

Kevin Durant is staying in Brooklyn, according to a statement from Nets general manager Sean Marks.

“[Coach] Steve Nash and I, along with (board members) Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai, met with Durant and Rich Kleiman in Los Angeles yesterday,” Marks said in a statement. “We agreed to move forward with our partnership.

We are focused on basketball, with a collective goal in mind: to build a lasting franchise to bring a championship to Brooklyn.”

Durant initially requested a trade on June 30 and reiterated that desire in a meeting with Joe Tsai in London, sources confirmed to ESPN earlier this month.

During that meeting, Durant wanted Tsai to choose between him and the brain trust of Nash and Marks. Instead, Nash and Marks will keep their jobs, while Durant will remain in Brooklyn on the four-year, $198 million extension he signed last offseason.

The Nets have spent most of the offseason dealing with the Durant-Kyrie Irving controversy.

Irving, who played in 29 games last season after choosing not to vaccinate, created a list of teams he would have liked the Nets to consider working out a sign-and-trade deal with. However, no viable trade materialized and Irving opted for the final year of his contract. The Nets could still deal him as an expiring contract and have until June 30 of next year to work on an extension before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.

With Irving and Durant still on the team, the Nets will look to upgrade and expect Ben Simmons to be a part of that.

Simmons was traded to Brooklyn in a deal that sent James Harden to Philadelphia, but he has yet to make his Nets debut.

The odds of the Nets winning the NBA championship went from 18-1 to 9-1 after the Nets announced Durant would stay. The 9-1 odds put Brooklyn ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers as the fourth-best option to win the title, behind the Celtics (+450), Warriors (+650), Suns (+800), Clippers (+800) and Bucks ( +800).